Writers Unbound

Benjamin Franklin deserves the admiration of freelance writers everywhere. Get that picture of him flying the kite with the key during a storm out of your head. Yes, he did that, but that’s just one of many things.
Summary:

• Born Jan 17, 1706, the tenth son of Josiah and Abiah. Okay, so Ben can’t take much credit here, but let’s keep going.
• After a brief sojourn in school (which Ben loved), and a couple of years employed in his father’s business (soapmaking), Josiah apprenticed him to his older brother James, a printer. Ben loved to read but Josiah couldn’t afford to keep him in school (there wasn’t that much money in soapmaking). Ben also loved the sea and wanted to be a sailor, which his father did not think was a good idea.
• All “the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books,” says Ben. He liked Pilgrim’s Progress, R. Burton’s Historical Collections, Plutarch’s Lives, and De Foe’s Essay on Projects.
• Ben’s apprenticeship in the printing business gave him greater access to books; at first he was able to borrow from the booksellers, and then a frequent customer of James’ printing-house allowed Ben access to his library.
• The breadth of his reading thus expanded to include poetry, Ben decided to try writing his own. “They were wretched stuff,” he said, later, and his father discouraged the attempts, “So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one.”
• Prose writing is different, something that “has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement.” (Someday we will all be saying that, as we sign book covers for the miles-long line at the major bookstore…).
• Three experiences helped Ben to develop his writing ability. He only had one year in school, remember? First, he began debating with a friend, via letters, on “the propriety of educating the female sex in learning.” (Ben took the side with the ladies, just so you know.) Ben’s father happened to find and read his letters, and gave him some constructive criticism, which caused Ben to grow “more attentive to the matter in writing, and determined to endeavor an improvement.” Next, Ben came across the third volume of the Spectator. He was entranced with the writing, which he thought excellent, and attempted rewriting it from memory, translating it into verse and then back into prose again, to learn the style and gain a broader vocabulary. Finally, he found an English grammar with an explanation of dispute in the Socratic method, and afterward bought Xenophon’s Memorable Things of Socrates. His style of argument changed dramatically from this influence: as he says, I “dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter.”
• In 1723, having learned the trade, run the paper in his brother’s absence, and finding that his brother did not appreciate his skill, Ben ran away to Philadelphia. He found work as an apprentice printer, and within a few years had borrowed money and set himself up in the printing business. By 1730, he was married and running a print shop and book store.
• In 1729, he bought a newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, which he both wrote for and printed. It became the most successful newspaper in the colonies.
• In 1733 he began writing and publishing Poor Richard’s Almanack.
• Ben launched and succeeded in many community causes, such as street lights, the first public library in America, The American Philosophical Society, the Pennsylvania Hospital, and Philadelphia’s first fire-fighting company. In all of these endeavors, he used his writing ability to introduce each idea, present the reasons for it, counter the arguments against it, and explain how it could be accomplished.
• His later life consisted of experiments and discoveries in electricity (this is the part with the kite), which made him famous, and great political involvement. He was a colonial representative in England until 1765, when he got in trouble for purposely leaking letters that revealed the Massachusetts governor’s plan to repeal English liberties for Americans.
• Ben came back to America and worked for independence as a member of the Second Continental Congress, one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, and ambassador to France. After America gained independence, Ben served as President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania and delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and was a signer of the Constitution. His anti-slavery treatise of 1789 was one of his last works; he died in 1790.

Humble beginnings, persistence, steady learning, attention to quality, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a readiness to learn anything: sounds like the makings of a successful freelance writer.

Make it a good day.

Image Credit:FI.edu.